Health insurers warned that a move by the Trump administration on Saturday to temporarily suspend a program that was set to pay out $10.4 billion to insurers for covering high-risk individuals last year could drive up premium costs and create marketplace uncertainty. The Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) “risk adjustment” program is intended to incentivize health insurers to cover individuals with pre-existing and chronic conditions by collecting money from insurers with relatively healthy enrollees to offset the costs of other insurers with sicker ones. President Donald Trump’s administration has used its regulatory powers to undermine the ACA on multiple fronts after...

Congressional Republicans failed to repeal or replace Obamacare. But one state has come up with a way to get around it. Idaho is dealing with Obamacare by just blowing it off. If it works, other states seem likely to follow. Idaho’s Republican governor, Butch Otter, signed an executive order last year paving the way for non-Obamacare-compliant health insurance plans to be sold in his state, and Lt. Gov. Brad Little has since cobbled together what is sure to be the nation’s most controversial healthcare initiative. Obamacare’s spiraling premium increases have especially hurt middle-income consumers, In Idaho, at least, they will...

And predictably put the blame somewhere else. "Also, the premium increases for health insurance they want from us will cost us about $600,000 every year," Martin Kich of Wright State University writes on the academe blog maintained by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in a broadside against his university's administration. "Right now, we pay about $1.8 million." "$600,000 more would be a 33% increase! On top of higher premiums, they want to cut health benefits via increased co-pays, increased out-of-pocket maximums, and increased coinsurance. Needless to say, cuts such as these harm people who are already sick, defeating...

WASHINGTON – Health insurance premiums in Virginia’s individual marketplace are set to rise as high as 265 percent in this new year. According to the Virginia State Corporation Commission’s Affordable Care Act filing data, the maximum allowable premium hike for Optima Health Plan customers is 265.5 percent, which represents the largest increases in the Virginia individual market next year. Some Cigna Health and Life Insurance Company health plans on the individual market are set to rise 168.6 percent in 2018.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said early Thursday that she expects legislation to lower health-care premiums to pass Congress before senators take a final vote on a $1.5 trillion tax-reform bill that would repeal the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate. “When you take out that one provision from the ACA it causes premiums to go up as healthier, younger people leave the market place,” she said. Senate GOP leaders at the urging of conservatives have added to the tax package a provision that would repeal ObamaCare’s requirement that people purchase health coverage. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that could cause insurance...

The Senate this week is expected to vote on a tax bill that includes a controversial provision to repeal Obamacare’s tax penalty on the uninsured. Democrats and some conservative policy analysts fret that if Congress scuttles the so-called individual mandate, insurance premiums will rise. The reverse may be closer to the truth: Premiums for Obamacare policies next year will be so high that millions will be exempt from the tax penalty whether Congress repeals it or not. Even the skimpiest coverage now costs so much that many uninsured people with six-figure incomes will be exempt. The individual mandate is repealing...

I am very positive, and if Trump were not president, I'd be livid...I should not be surprised, but still I am. I have an Anthem $11,500 deductible policy for my family of 4. It is going up Jan 1 from $514 to $605, or roughly 20%. I am pissed, of course. I hope this thread drives good discussion. I believe under Trump in 2018 we'll see some improvement and competition...am I correct that the increases are due to profit shortfalls the obama-partnering healthcare execs are hedging and covering their losses? Ant thoughts out there from those more plugged in this...

Director of insurance says to stabilize the market and reduce rates, Congress should repeal and replace Obamacare! Health care insurers in Idaho have requested premium rate hikes as high as 81 percent for next year, according to the state's Department of Insurance. The five insurers serving the individual market in Idaho are Blue Cross of Idaho Health Service, Mountain Health Co-Op, PacificSource Health Plans, Regence BlueShield of Idaho, and SelectHealth. For all plans, insurers requested rates ranging from a low of 25 percent to a high of 51 percent for a combined average statewide rate increase of 38 percent. For...

Top health insurance companies in numerous states are looking to hike premiums by double-digits – some by roughly 30 percent or more – for ObamaCare plans in 2018, according to newly released figures that could light a fire under stalled efforts on Capitol Hill to fix the program. “A lot of us have lost focus on the fact that the system we have doesn’t work,” White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday, referring to the proposed premium hikes. The Wall Street Journal reported that major insurers in Idaho, West Virginia, South Carolina, Iowa and Wyoming...

two years higher than they would be under Obamacare. New data shows just how high the cost has already gotten for people who don't qualify for subsidies now. In the report, eHealth found that individual premiums for insurance plans sold through its marketplace, or exchange, rose to an average of $378 per month in 2017 — an 18 percent increase from 2016's open enrollment season. Since 2014, the average premiums for individual coverage have jumped 39 percent, eHealth found. That year, 2014, was the first for new Affordable Care Act rules mandating designs of insurance plans, which included a set...

ST. PAUL, Minn. (WCCO) — Help is coming for thousands of Minnesotans hit with skyrocketing health care premiums. The Minnesota House and Senate passed an emergency aid package Thursday and have sent it to the Governor. And Governor Mark Dayton is expected to sign the bill immediately. The Minnesota House and Senate passed that rescue rebate for 125,000 Minnesotans hit with huge monthly premium hikes. But it took months to reach agreement, while Minnesota families worried about what to do. Self-employed families are facing monthly insurance premiums of $2,500 a month or more. They make too much to get tax...

President Barack Obama is telling workers and volunteers signing up customers for health insurance coverage that the enrollment season comes at a critical time in the Affordable Care Act’s history. […] Some insurers have bailed out of markets and premiums are jumping in many states. But Obama says government tax credits will offset the premium increases for most consumers. He says people will be pleasantly surprised at just how affordable their options are, if they shop around. …

When the Affordable Care Act's fourth open enrollment period starts next week, many Lehigh Valley participants will notice a sharp spike in premiums. In Pennsylvania, the average price for the benchmark second-lowest-cost silver plan for a 27-year-old is going up 53 percent, according to a report issued Monday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. That's nearly four times the rate of increase nationally.

The neverending saga of how the "Affordable Care Act" (aka ObamaCare) is making its mark in the USA continues. The politicians had promised that it would result in lower costs. So where do we stand now? Just 22 months ago I was on the "Bronze HMO 006" plan from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas with a monthly premium of 193.07. In 2015 the premium changed to 226.57 and in 2016 it changed to 286.29. Today I see on http://www.healthcare.gov that for 2017 its going to be 438.10 per month. That is a hike of 126.9%. Its also a year-over-year...

Oct 24 (Reuters) - The average premium for benchmark 2017 Obamacare insurance plans sold on Healthcare.gov rose 25 percent compared with 2016, the U.S. government said on Monday, the biggest increase since the insurance first went on sale in 2013 for the following year. The average monthly premium for the benchmark plan is rising to $302 from $242 in 2016, the Department of Health and Human Services said. The agency attributed the large increase to insurers adjusting their premiums to reflect two years of cost data that became available.

President Barack Obama offers multiple excuses for why health insurance premiums continue to skyrocket, including blaming Republicans and insurance companies for the problems. He complains that too many reporters spend more time discussing premium increases than explaining why he isn’t responsible for them. “No, I had nothing to do with that,” Obama said, calling it “complicated” despite the “hysteria” that was growing. Obama traveled to Florida to argue that Obamacare was working well, but needed to be fixed

Minnesota's Democratic governor said Wednesday that the Affordable Care Act is "no longer affordable," a stinging critique from a state leader who strongly embraced the law just a few years ago. Gov. Mark Dayton made the comments while addressing questions about Minnesota's fragile health insurance market, where individual plans are facing double-digit increases after all insurers threatened to exit the market entirely in 2017. They follow cost concerns and criticism nationwide, including President Bill Clinton saying last week that the law was "the craziest thing in the world" before he backtracked.

Once was a shock. Twice was an outrage. Thrice is a nightmare that won't end. Over the past three years, my family's private, individual health insurance plan -- a high-deductible Preferred Provider Organization -- has been canceled three times. Our first death notice, from Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, arrived in the fall of 2013. Our second, from Rocky Mountain Health Plans, came last August. Three weeks ago, we received another ominous "notice of plan discontinuation" from Anthem informing us that the insurer "will no longer offer your current health plan in the State of Colorado." Every time we...